We hopped on another mini bus only to be told that the first stop was Chiang Rai, the white temple! It would have been nice to have been told this prior to booking the day trip to Chiang Rai, especially as I asked if we could go straight from Chiang Rai to the Laos border to be told no, when quite clearly we could have!
But hey ho, I'm learning that over here people just give answers even if they're not the right ones! So instead we spent our time at the temple sipping a (delicious) fruit shake and shopping instead!
After about 6 hours travelling we arrived at a really nice guest house... with a pool! My first swimming pool since travelling (apart from when teaching the special needs children) so of course we jumped straight in (despite there being no sun, as per usual). After a while I lay lounging by the pool to suddenly hear Kate shout 'Lizzie!' and I looked up to see our friend from our uni course! Small small world.
The next day we set off with a group of about 15 to the boat that we'd be travelling on for 2 days. One of the guys from Australia (who was quite literally the Aussie version of our friend Daisy from uni) suggested getting beers for the boat so we ended up with about 6 crates of beer. We then rearranged the entire back of the boat so that we were sat in a circle (7 hours on the boat wasn't going to be bad after all!)
We chatted and played drinking games and Kate and I felt we were becoming fully fledged beer drinkers (our aim of the trip). The views along the river were also really nice, although the river itself was SO brown!
That night we stayed at a random hostel on an island and then continued another 8 hours on the boat the next day (this time with not such enthusiasm for the beer... apparently beers give me hangovers! We might not get on..).
Finally we got to Laos which was really green and less built up, far more like Sri Lanka. The town itself was quite pretty and very quiet! There was even very little hustle and bustle at the night market.
Unexpectedly we stumbled across a bar and restaurant called Utopia which we almost turned away from as it was so far down several alley ways. Thank goodness we didn't as the place was so cool! Located right on the Mekong river, it had a hippy vibe with cushions to lie down on on the floor and a (very strange, very I love nature, save the world) women singing. There was about 150 people there, clearly we'd found where all the tourists go!
The next day we went to Kuangsi Waterfall Park with our friends from the boat. I expected to see a waterfall like the many we'd already seen, but it was so much more!
Firstly there was a bear rescue park which was really cool as I hadn't seen bears before! With no disrespect to them (as they might eat me) they all looked really dumb with 'slow expressions'.
The waterfall was amazing, it went on and on and on so there were were several waterfalls and pools made up from the one biggest.
We climbed up to the very top of the waterfall (which was far higher than what you can see) which felt like an extreme version of the trek all over again!
We found a quiet waterfall along the way which we swam in and jumped off from which was lovely and refreshing after the hill climb!
Kate and I in front of one of the small waterfalls.
In the evening we headed to Utopia again and I had a mammoth burger that I'd been craving! We also took a break from beer to enjoy some giant sized cocktails.
When we arrived it was so surreal! It felt like we were turning up at a kids party - bright white lights, music you could hardly hear above the chatter and people bowling!
It was so much fun though and a nice change than usually clubbing as it felt more sociable and easier to chat to people. Still very strange!
Alcohol does not make bowling easier... although I do look like a bit of a pro.
With love from Laos...X
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